A bellhop with a telegram roused me at ten o’clock in the morning. The telegram was from Mexicali:
Drove here last night Holed up with friends Sent two wires
That was good news. The long-necked man had fallen for my play, had taken my four busted gamblers for four witnesses, had taken their nods for identifications. Gooseneck was the lad who had done the actual killing, and Gooseneck was in flight.
I had shed my pajamas and was reaching for my union suit when the boy came back with another wire. This one was from O’Gar, through the agency:
Ashcraft disappeared yesterday.
I used the telephone to get Hooper out of bed.
“Get down to Tijuana,” I told him. “Stick up the house where you left the girl last night, unless you run across her at the Golden Horseshoe. Stay there until she shows. Stay with her until she connects with a big blond Englishman, and then switch to him. He’s a man of less than forty, tall, with blue eyes and yellow hair. Don’t let him shake you—he’s the big boy in this party just now. I’ll be down. If the Englishman and I stay together and the girl leaves us, take her, but otherwise stick to him.”
I dressed, put down some breakfast and caught a stage for the Mexican town. The boy driving the stage made fair time, but you would have thought we were standing still to see a maroon roadster pass us near Palm City. Ashcraft was driving the roadster.